BetterUp alternatives
BetterUp for Individuals is ending. Here is what to do next.
If you have been paying for BetterUp coaching yourself, your programme ends on 31 January 2027. This page covers what is happening, how to save your record before you lose access, and what the honest alternatives are, including the ones that are not us.
Published 19 September 2026 · Last updated 19 September 2026
What is happening, and when
BetterUp is closing BetterUp for Individuals, its self funded coaching subscription. The company stopped selling new individual subscriptions on 31 January 2026, began winding the programme down on 1 February 2026, stopped renewals on 31 July 2026, and the programme ends entirely on 31 January 2027.
Enterprise coaching, the version your employer buys, is not affected. This only concerns people who were paying for their own coaching.
Before anything else, save your record
Do this first, because access ends with the programme and cancelling is permanent.
- Download or screenshot every assessment report you have.
- Copy your message history with your coach.
- Request a full data export through BetterUp's privacy request centre.
- Ask your coach directly whether they are continuing independently, because many are.
That last point matters more than it sounds. The relationship with a coach who already knows your situation is the most valuable thing you are losing, and it is the one thing that can survive the shutdown.
Your four real options
1. Follow your coach into private practice. The best option if the relationship worked and you can afford it. You keep the context and lose the platform. Independent coaches typically charge more per hour than a subscription implied, so ask about rates before assuming.
2. Find a new human coach. Right if you want a person, have a specific situation, and have the budget. Expect to spend time finding a good fit, and expect the first few sessions to be re explaining context the old coach already had.
3. Use a platform built for organisations, and get your employer to pay. CoachHub, Torch, Ezra and similar sell to companies, not to people. If your employer has a learning budget, ask. If you are paying yourself, these are not designed for you and are priced accordingly.
4. Use something built to be paid for by the person using it. This is the category BetterUp just left, and it is the one EMIL is built for.
What EMIL is
EMIL is a leadership coach for people preparing for their first management role, managers in their early years, and experienced leaders scaling to wider scope. It is built on practice rather than theory.
Managers rehearse difficult conversations before they have them, leave each session with one commitment, and are held to it the following week. Across a cycle they build a record of what changed. It is a development cycle with a memory, not a chatbot with a leadership prompt.
Delivered as software rather than scheduled hours, it costs a fraction of what an hour of human coaching costs, which is the whole reason a category that BetterUp could not sustain at consumer prices can exist at all.
Where to start today
The promotion readiness diagnostic is free, takes twelve questions, and scores you across seven leadership dimensions including track record, visibility, influence and self awareness. You get a result you can act on and the specific gap between you and the next level.
It is a reasonable way to judge whether EMIL thinks about leadership in a way that is useful to you, months before you have to decide whether to pay for anything.
EMIL opens to its first members in January 2027, the same month BetterUp for Individuals closes. If you want to know when, the diagnostic ends with the option to join the list.